Case study

mystery-sdl: porting the Mystery screen saver to SDL2

mystery-sdl ports the Microsoft Plus! Mystery screen saver to SDL2 on Linux. After REA-assisted analysis of the original binaries, it reimplements sprite, animation and sound services in C, translates the plugin logic, and reads scene data from the user's Mystery.dll.

Targets: App
Category: Community REA investigations
Relationship: Author-reported mixed workflow
Sources reviewed: 2026-11-09
Evidence class: C2 code & docs, no demo or download

Stars: 0
Last commit: 2026-10-11
Language: C
License (GitHub): MIT

GitHub data as of 2026-11-10

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Evidence

Observed: Code, documentation and a demo observed; no download method found.
Checked: 2026-11-09

How evidence classes are assigned

Requirements & limits

Prerequisites: The original Mystery.dll from a legitimately obtained Microsoft Plus! for Windows 95 copy is required.
Prerequisites: Building requires a C compiler, make, pkg-config and SDL2 development files version 2.0.5 or newer.
Testing evidence: The author reports testing only on x86-64 Arch Linux and comparing the first frame with the original under Wine; individual animation timing remains unverified.
License: MIT license.

Cite

BibTeX

@misc{mystery-sdl-case,
  title = {{mystery-sdl: porting the Mystery screen saver to SDL2}},
  howpublished = {\url{https://github.com/viny182/mystery-sdl}},
  url = {https://github.com/viny182/mystery-sdl},
  urldate = {2026-11-09},
  note = {Awesome REA entry: \url{https://awesomerea.org/resources/mystery-sdl-case/}}
}

Plain text

mystery-sdl: porting the Mystery screen saver to SDL2. https://github.com/viny182/mystery-sdl (accessed 2026-11-09). Awesome REA entry: https://awesomerea.org/resources/mystery-sdl-case/

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About this entry

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Primary sources

README.md GitHub · viny182/mystery-sdl · Revision fec0d3c
LICENSE GitHub · viny182/mystery-sdl · Revision fec0d3c